In the last two missions of the Dragon module, carried out by Elon Musk’s SpaceX for NASA, an apparent failure occurred at the most critical moment: a parachute opened long following the others.
This is clearly visible in the live broadcast of the return of the crew of astronauts from the Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station on November 8: of the four parachutes, only three open immediately.
The opening occurs at 1:06:08 in the video above. The fourth parachute takes an additional 75 seconds to deploy.
On January 24, it happened once more. Upon returning from an unmanned mission, which was not broadcast live, the same thing happened. This time he was 63 seconds behind.
The agency and the company are trying to find out what happened. According to an official NASA statement released yesterday, the delay may be an “aerodynamic artifact” of the parachute system. That is to say something in the expectations of the project.
Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial program manager (i.e. integration with private companies like SpaceX) explained in detail: “This parachute lag phenomenon is something we see with these large parachutes. ring fingers. [ringsail, tipo usado em velocidades supersônicas]. What we think – and it’s just a theory at the moment – is that aerodynamically the other three canvases can cast a shadow, so to speak, on the other, and that sometimes hurts to inflate.
Parachute shouldn’t delay NASA’s next mission
Stich says the phenomenon had been observed on previous trade missions. Additionally, the agency and company are currently investigating the issue ahead of upcoming missions.
But at the same time, he also says there was no risk in what happened. “If you look at the data, you won’t even notice that any of the Crew-2 or CRS-24 mission parachutes [a de carga] delayed,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight quality at SpaceX. “If you look at the descent data, it looks like it was just a normal return with four parachutes. »
According to the executive, even without opening, the fourth parachute still caused a slowdown. And also that, even in the event of a total failure of one of the parachutes, the project provides for a landing without difficulty.
“This will be studied in detail. We’ll use that as another data point to see if we can be more informed regarding how these systems work to make sure that, yes, that’s the nominal operation of this four-parachute system, or maybe it’s something different is happening here. »
According to the agency and the company, the next launch of a manned mission, scheduled for April 15, should not be delayed due to the investigation.
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